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Hotshot crews help Beeline to remain open on day-to-day basis

By Jim Keyworth, Roundup staff reporter

Monday, July 5, 2004

Thanks to diligent firefighters and a plan to strategically place hotshot crews on the fire line, State Route 87 - the Beeline Highway - will not close as scheduled at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

Richard Haddad/Roundup Tonto National Forest Supervisor Karl Siderits announced that the forest's entire 3,000,000 acres will be closed to campfires, smoking and all other burning effective at 8 a.m. Tuesday, July 6.

According to fire officials, firefighters were able to hold the line on the Willow Fire allowing the main highway into Payson to remain open on a day-to-day basis.

"We intend on leaving the highway open in the morning," Operations Sections Chief Buck Wickham said at the Monday evening media briefing. "But that could change in a heartbeat. At the rate the fire can make a run, it could be at the highway in two hours."

The strategy to hold the fire between Deer Creek and Bars Canyon, some 13 miles south of Payson and five miles west of Highway 87 has been successful so far. But Wickham cautioned that things could change.

"It is hot in there, and it has flopped over that ridge a little bit," he said. "But hopefully we can pick it up with aircraft in the morning."

Wickham also said the immediate strategy is to array hotshot crews against the fire on the southeast. "We'll insert them by Catherine Peak and have them start working west," he said. "If we're successful in doing that, we take a lot of different issues out of play. We take the closure of Highway 87 out of the question and we won't have to turn off the large (power lines)."

Incident Commander Jeff Whitney called the use of hotshot teams the beginning of the end.

"That's really an encouraging sign, because that's kind of the last step to initiate the final containment of this fire," Whitney said.

Meanwhile, Tonto National Forest Supervisor Karl Siderits announced that the forest's entire 3,000,000 acres will be closed to campfires, smoking and all other burning effective at 8 a.m. today (Tuesday).

As of 8 p.m. Monday, the fire had reached 85,000 acres and was 17 percent contained.